New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended in red on Thursday, pausing in its record race while keeping an eye on the coronavirus and its economic consequences.

Its flagship Wall Street index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 0.44% to 29.219.98 points.

The highly technological Nasdaq dropped 0.67% to 9,750.96 points and the S&P 500, which represents the 500 largest companies on Wall Street, lost 0.38% to 3,373.23 points. They both finished the day before at new levels.

Slightly lower at the start, the indexes nosedived in mid-session before picking up a bit.

"There was no specific information" triggering this movement, said Art Hogan of National Holdings. This bout of weakness is, according to him, mainly linked to the fact that "the indices have been rising sharply since October".

While "the S&P 500 has not experienced two consecutive days of decline since the beginning of the year", this decline "is rather healthy," he said.

Brokers are always on the lookout for any information on the coronavirus.

If the slowdown in the spread of the viral pneumonia epidemic, with a sharp drop in the number of new infections, had reassured investors on Wednesday, they were again shaken Thursday by the announcement of two deaths outside of China, in Japan as it happens.

"There is also quite a bit of talk in the marketplace that Apple should not be the only big company to warn that its first quarter results will be affected by the slowdown in manufacturing activity and demand in China", says Hogan.

The Chinese Central Bank has in any case given a new boost to the economy, largely paralyzed for almost a month by the measures to combat the coronavirus, by announcing a drop of one tenth of a point of one its benchmark interest rates.

Richard Clarida, number 2 of the American Central Bank (Fed), for his part estimated in an interview with the financial news channel CNBC that the American economy had started the year on a good basis, in particular thanks to the conclusion of several commercial agreements.

But, he added, the coronavirus crisis will have "a noticeable impact on Chinese growth", at least in the first quarter, which could have repercussions on American companies sourcing from China.

Investors in the bond market were cautious. As a sign of increased interest, the 10-year rate on the US debt fell sharply and moved towards 9:20 PM GMT at 1.517% against 1.566% on Wednesday at the close.

© 2020 AFP